Dragon Prince 03 - Sunrunner's Fire (20 page)

Ruala chuckled and went to offer wine to Rialt, Edrel, and the three guards, repeating the traditional words of welcome to each. Pol hid a grin as Rialt’s gaze widened slightly; she was indeed very beautiful, with the slim, quick figure of a girl and the graceful poise of a woman. The combination of black hair, white skin, and lustrous dark green eyes was enough to make any man look thrice. Add a tip-tilted nose, a charming smile, and that indefinable
something
about a woman of breeding and intelligence who knows her worth, and Lady Ruala of Elktrap was a formidable creature.

Once inside the gates, their horses were taken by grooms. Riyan, Sorin, and Lord Garic descended the short steps of the manor house, the latter giving him warm welcome. The former two still looked slightly disgruntled. Pol grinned at his friends.

“Oh, stop glowering. I’m here and you’re stuck with me. And I’ve been thinking about how best to trap this dragon killer. Riyan, you and I can weave sunlight and go looking from here, after you give me the picture of him you got from the dragon.”

“As you wish, my lord.”

“And stop being so formal—I already know you disapprove of my being here.” He turned to Garic as they entered the wide downstairs hall that seemed entirely carved of dark-stained pine. “And that reminds me, I’d be honored if you and your granddaughter would call me by my name.”

“The honor is ours. Although I’m afraid our folk will bow and stare quite devotedly.” The old man chuckled. “They’ve never served a prince before.”

Rialt laughed as they started up the stairs. “The easiest way to rattle his grace here is to bow to him fifty times a day. It keeps him humble.”

Ruala sent him a gentle frown of puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”

For a moment the chamberlain looked as if he’d wink at her. “He’s just like his father, my lady—treating him like a prince is the best way to remind him he’s only a man like the rest of us.”

Pol made a face. “Thank you for sharing that piece of wisdom with us, Rialt. My lady, you see what I have to endure in my own palace.” He hesitated on a landing, catching sight of the group in a magnificent old mirror. It wasn’t himself he stared at, but Ruala—the dark-gold sheen cast onto her skin, the misted secrets in her eyes. Goddess, she was beautiful—

She smiled at him in the mirror. “Startling, isn’t it?”

He nodded helplessly, and with an effort shifted his eyes to the frame. “Exquisite work.”

“The craft is a lost one, more’s the pity,” Garic said. “They used some combination of metals we don’t know how to make anymore. The glass seems to be special, too.”

“Isn’t there one at Skybowl like this, Riyan?” Pol asked.

“It belonged to my mother. I’ve no idea where she got it or how old it is.”

“Very, if it’s similar to this one.” Garic asked casually, “I believe your mother was Fironese?”

“Mm-hmm.” The young man traced a section of knotwork with a careful finger. “When I was little, I had the feeling sometimes that somebody was watching me from inside the mirror.” He looked around, embarrassed, and shrugged.

“They’re all like that,” Ruala said, exchanging a quick glance with her grandfather that Riyan missed and Pol did not. “My sister and I used to try to sneak past this one so it wouldn’t see us!”

“All?” Sorin inquired. “How many more are there?”

“We have this one, and four small hand mirrors. And another one almost this size, but the glass cracked about ten winters ago and the replacement doesn’t feel the same at all.” She started up the next series of steps.

“Andry’s interested in mirrors,” Sorin remarked as the men followed her. “The way Rohan is fascinated by things like water clocks.”

“Is he?” said Lord Garic politely, then let the subject drop by saying, “I think you’ll find this a pleasant chamber, my lord. Ruala, did you have them bring up the mossberry wine?”

“Allow me, my lady,” Rialt said, going to the table to serve the highborns.

Pol relaxed in a soft chair and nodded thanks to his chamberlain for the wine. “Beautiful tapestries. Giladan, aren’t they? Riyan, I want to hear all about touching that dragon—later. For now, tell me everything that happened from the time you found him.”

Between them they made quick work of the tale, and Riyan finished with, “I’ve already tried to find him on sunlight. No luck. But now that you’re here, there’ll be two of us working. He can’t be more than three or four days’ ride in any direction, but that’s still a lot of territory to cover.”

“Our people have been instructed to keep their eyes open,” Ruala offered.

Pol nodded his thanks. “Excellent. But I don’t think it will take very long to discover this man’s whereabouts. All we have to do is look for dragons.”

Sorin made an annoyed gesture. “Father’s always telling me not to be more stupid than the Goddess intended! Why didn’t I think of that? Of
course
he’ll go after another dragon!”

“Of course,” Riyan echoed. “I just hope that when he does, we won’t be too far behind him. I don’t want to see another one dead, Pol. You can’t imagine the horror of what he did to the poor beast.”

“Show me,” Pol said simply.

Riyan hesitated, then rose from his chair and fetched a fat white candle from the sideboard. Wrapping the fingers of both hands around it, he called Fire to the wick. Ruala blinked; Garic showed no reaction at all. The little flame flickered, steadied, rose to five times the height of a normal flame, and expanded to encompass the conjuring Riyan created within it.

Some moments later Pol was aware that there was blood in his mouth; he had bitten the inside of his upper lip. He forced himself to think clearly, to calm his sick fury at what had been done to the dragon. “Show me the man’s face as the dragon saw it.”

The arrogant, clever, handsome face appeared, blue eyes laughing above the violet clothes. Pol felt hate twist his vitals. He banished that emotion, too, and tried to read that face while committing it to memory. There was something familiar about it, but nothing he recognized as coming from a particular region or a specific highborn lineage.

Fironese heritage like Riyan’s—dark eyes, dark skin, dark hair—was easy to identify. Pol’s light hair and eyes came from his grandmother Milar, a blonde like most natives of the Catha Hills. In one remote area of Dorval, everyone had the same short-fingered hands; the shepherds on the south coast of Kierst were substantially taller than most people. Even in the more diverse populations, such as that of Einar, certain characteristics regularly appeared. Pol knew all the regional distinctions and none of them applied to “Aliadim.”

Of course, with every generation such telltale signs blurred a little more. In the families of princes and
athr’im,
who habitually married outsiders, definitive traits were only accidents by now. Tobin was obviously of Desert stock with her black hair and black eyes, but Rohan was as blond as their mother. Pol’s squire, Edrel, lacked the thin streak of white in his hair that had been characteristic in his family for generations. And in the Kierstian and Syrene royal lines, of which Pol was a part through Sioned, the green eyes and the gifts of a Sunrunner from Goddess Keep who had married a Prince of Kierst showed up sporadically.

He didn’t notice that Riyan’s candleflame had guttered out. He stared into empty space, Fire still burning his eyes and searing the face into his mind. Something was itching at his perceptions, like a half-heard insect whine or a barely felt twitch in a muscle. If not identifiable by region or family trait, then possibly—

No. He knew the bloodlines, legitimate and otherwise, of every noble family in all the thirteen princedoms. Audrite had drilled him in genealogy as part of his training at Graypearl. That this man did not have specific signposts as to his origins did not mean he was a mixed-breed highborn.

Still, there was something tauntingly familiar about that face. He looked forward to seeing it in person—and would take great pleasure in altering it with his fists.

Aware that the others were trying not to stare at him for his long silence, he roused himself and spoke. “Very well. Now that I know who to look for—”

He broke off, knowing suddenly why he had been jumpy a few moments earlier. He ran for the sunlit windows, Sorin a half-step behind him. He had felt it, too; it was said that their grandfather had had this particular talent to burn. Pol had come into the perceptions late, but at last that oddest of family traits in all the princedoms had awakened in him. Proof that he possessed it flew over the towering pines: a dragon.

He gripped his cousin’s arm and felt Sorin’s muscles shiver just like his own with the awe-filled joy of seeing a dragon. No matter how many times he saw the great beasts, the tingle along his nerves that heralded their arrival and the transcendent wonder of watching them in flight moved him to his marrow. This one was a fine, full-grown female, green-bronze in color with black underwings. She flew a lazy series of spirals perhaps half a measure from them, as if she knew she was being watched and wanted to show off her beauty and her skill. She rode the wind like some fantastic twin-sailed ship, soaring, drifting, beating her wings to take her upward again. On or about the fortieth day of spring she would fly with her kind to the Desert, there to choose her mate and wall up her eggs in caves to bake through the long summer. Fifteen or so of her hatchlings would die in the cave, too weak to struggle out of the shell, to break down the wall, or to avoid becoming a sibling’s first meal. Perhaps three would live to fly—a far greater number than in olden times, when men had slaughtered the survivors as they emerged into the sunshine. Rohan had outlawed the Hatching Hunt long ago. Killing a dragon had been forbidden for the length of Pol’s life.

But someone was trying to kill this one. She faltered in midwingbeat and a cry that was half fury and half terror thundered through the mountains. Her head lashed back on her neck, her tail whipping from side to side in frantic rhythm. The balance of flight lost, she plummeted to the ground like a falling stone.

Ruala found her voice first. “He’ll kill her if we don’t hurry!”

Riyan’s head jerked around. “What makes you think
you’re
coming along?”

She opened her mouth to protest as the three young lords and Rialt hurried to the door, Pol shouting for Edrel. Her grandfather clamped both strong hands around her shoulders from behind to keep her from following. She twisted to glare up at him.

“Don’t even think of it,” he told her.

Ruala shook him off. She went to the windows that overlooked the courtyard, where nearly every servant at Elktrap had joined in the frantic scramble to saddle and bridle fresh horses. Pol was mounted first, then Riyan and Sorin, and finally Rialt. They clattered out the gates, the squire and three guards galloping behind.

“I’ll be going with them soon, though, Grandsir,” she said thoughtfully. “After all, one of those young men is going to be my husband.”

“Ruala!” He grasped her shoulders again and turned her to face him. “Which one?”

Her answer was an innocent smile and absolutely nothing else.

“Hmph,” he replied.

 

 

Controlling a fast horse in a headlong race up a mountainside while at the same time weaving sunlight to find a downed dragon were not recommended for the easily distracted. Pol shifted precariously between his body’s consciousness of the mare moving beneath him and his mind’s consciousness of the terrain moving beneath his fabric of plaited light far above. The doubled sensation should have made him as motion sick as crossing water, but all he felt was a vague dizziness. Thanking the Goddess for her mercies, he split his concentration in two neat, separate parts and didn’t have time to think about anything else.

But Riyan did, and as they began the descent down into a ravine he deliberately slammed his horse into Pol’s to gain the prince’s attention. Reining in, Pol shook himself free of the weaving and glowered at Riyan. “What in all Hells did you do that for?” he shouted. “I nearly fell!”

“You would’ve been worse off than that if you’d kept on Sunrunning. Have a look.” As the others pulled up, he gestured to the trail ahead which led into shadowy trees.

Pol felt his stomach turn over. If his body had left the sunlight while his mind and gifts were tangled in it—Urival’s lectures on the Star Scroll gave him the ancient word for the most hideous death a Sunrunner could imagine:
daltiya.
Shadow-lost. An empty mind in a body that functioned for a few days and then died.

“I’m sorry. It was careless of me,” Pol murmured. “Thank you, Riyan.”

“Did you catch sight of the dragon?”

“Not yet. Anybody hear anything?” Heads were shaken in the negative all around. “She can’t be that far from us. Riyan, will you take the south for about a measure? I’ll range north.”

Only a few moments later Riyan gave a guttural cry. Instantly Pol was back on the slope, shocked by his friend’s expression of horror.

“Can’t fly—afraid—kill him! Kill them! Can’t
fly,
wing broken—hurts hurts hurts—”

Sorin kicked his horse over to Riyan’s. Shaking his friend hard with one hand, he shouted his name several times. At last sense returned to Riyan’s dark eyes. “Are you all right?” Sorin asked worriedly.

A gulp, a curt nod. “Her pain . . . reached out to me. We must hurry, Pol. Just over that rise is a little box canyon with a waterfall at the east end. That’s where she is.”

Pol frowned. “You said ‘them.’ ”

“I did?” Riyan seemed to review memory of what he’d said—or seen, or felt, Pol wasn’t sure. “Yes. Another man—red hair is the only impression I got, along with her fear and pain. Pol, how did she do that? Catch me up in her feelings that way? For an instant, she and I almost . . . it was as if we touched
minds,
not just colors on sunlight. As if we were almost one being.”

“We’ll get Feylin and my mother to speculate about it some other time. Though it’s killing me that you can do this and I can’t.” He turned to Rialt. “A box canyon presents interesting possibilities. You and Damayan ride up this ridge. If they try to escape this way—”